Cinematic standouts heavy on drama, action

Sunday

Freelance film reviewers Frank Gabrenya, Scott Gowans and Melissa Starker each submitted a list of the top films of the year.

Freelance film reviewers Frank Gabrenya, Scott Gowans and Melissa Starker each submitted a list of the top films of the year.

These 12 movies, listed alphabetically, topped their consensus. The descriptions are taken from either the reviews that ran in The Dispatch or comments supplied later by the reviewers.

• Arbitrage : In his 43rd film, Richard Gere — of the Buddhist, anti-materialistic philosophy — plays against type as a tycoon whose strength (his emotional invulnerability) is also his weakness. His character is a cutthroat businessman whose face may show wrinkles but whose suit wouldn’t dare. With a soul carved of ice and a family he neglects, he is the model of obscene wealth, a man lacking both morals and ethics. The film’s downbeat mood, showcasing the moral morass of contemporary America, is a great stage for Gere, who has never been better.

• Django Unchained: Inspired by Italian spaghetti Westerns and blaxploitation films of the 1960s and ’70s, Quentin Tarantino fixes his unique style on America’s ugly history of slavery. He exploits the mores of the antebellum South to make serious observations about the role of slavery in modern U.S. race relations. The movie is exquisitely adrenalized, seamlessly weaving together references from ancient German poetry and vintage TV shows to hip-hop. With its intense scenes of bloodshed and cruelty, and Tarantino’s frequent use of the N-word, plenty is here to offend. His ardent fans, though, will be mesmerized.

• Flight: Denzel Washington, delivering his bravest performance in years, anchors a grim addiction drama as an airline pilot who performs a heroic feat to save his doomed plane and passengers, only to be challenged later for having been drunk on duty. Director Robert Zemeckis guides Washington through a stark ordeal that has much more to teach viewers than how to land a plummeting airplane.

• Life of Pi: In an opulent family fantasy, a young Indian is cast adrift at sea with a Bengal tiger. The animation used to render the tiger and the other animals seems absolutely right, and the 3-D is subtle and constantly effective. Adding to the impressive accomplishment is the fact that Suraj Sharma, the actor playing the teenage Pi, is a first-timer discovered after an extensive search. His compassion and resilience never stop shining through. • Lincoln: The greatest U.S. president, the most commercially successful filmmaker and the most immersive actor intersect. Despite the title, director Steven Spielberg doesn’t provide an inclusive biography of the Great Emancipator. Instead, the script by Tony Kushner, “based in part” on the 2005 book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, emphasizes his efforts in early 1865 to ensure approval of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. Daniel Day-Lewis gives a smart, thorough portrayal of the savvy political master who surrounded himself with contrary men, gleaned their wisdom and steered events toward the results he was convinced were needed.

• The Master: Infuriatingly abstruse, director Paul Thomas Anderson’s film wanders but paints an indelible portrait of two post-World War II Americans. One (Philip Seymour Hoffman) suavely founds a cult based on half-baked notions he can barely defend. The other (Joaquin Phoenix) is a damaged ex-soldier desperately seeking something — anything — he can call his own. Phoenix, especially, is riveting in a story that rewards patience and thought.

• Moonrise Kingdom: Each new Wes Anderson film maps a different region of a warmly lit, oddly funny, bittersweet world that can be accessed only through the director’s head. His latest covers an area somewhere in the vicinity of his breakthrough film, Rushmore. As in that one, young love is at the heart of its sprawling tale. Set in 1965 on an island off the coast of New England, Moonrise Kingdom follows misfit preteens Sam and Suzy (newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward), who run away together.

• Pina: The Oscar- nominated documentary by German filmmaker Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire) is a moving, exquisitely shot tribute to a friend, modern-dance icon Pina Bausch. It also makes brilliant use of digital technology to form an intimate bond with viewers.

• A Separation: In a provocative drama determined to treat every side fairly, an Iranian marriage begins to fall apart. We often take comfort in the way that most movies conveniently label heroes and villains, right and wrong, so we don’t have to judge. Not this film: Writer-director Asghar Farhadi assembles a messy situation in which good people are undone by impulsive reactions that cause tempers to flare and make things worse. Is anyone to blame? Everyone?

• Silver Linings Playbook: The audience knows how this love story will play out before the characters do, but writer-director David O. Russell, working from the book by Matthew Quick, embraces the idiosyncratic, with good results. The romantic comedy, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, seems fresh and original. Perhaps the film’s point — wearing quirks on one’s sleeve beats repression — is too neat a message, too unrealistic from a real-world standpoint. But it’s effectively displayed by a talented storyteller.

• Skyfall: Once headed into pop-culture irrelevance, the James Bond movie franchise is alive and potent in ways that it hasn’t been since the early 1960s. With Daniel Craig as 007, the controlled thriller mixes just enough mayhem with character-based issues.

• Zero Dark Thirty: The hunt for Osama bin Laden provides the drive for a dark thriller about a CIA agent’s grim obsession. The movie, directed by Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and starring Jessica Chastain, opened in limited markets this month and will open on Jan. 11 in central Ohio.

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